PRETTY LITTLE LIARS 7x10: The DArkest Knight

Let's just hug this one out.

YOU GUYS. Of all the nights for life to get in the way of me watching PLL. I stayed away from the internet until I could catch the episode today, then life got in the way AGAIN and here I am, 24 hours later, confused and sad and shaken. What did I just watch? What is happening? Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

AWARDS

This Week's MVP

Mona, simply for showing up.

This Week's LVP

Emily. SOMEONE GOT SHOT BECAUSE YOU HAD TO GO BACK FOR YOUR GD PHONE, IDIOT.

Biggest Shock/Best Surprise

Um, Spencer is the lost DiLaurentis? AND ALSO MAYBE DEAD? (Hopefully/probably not.) Toby is also maybe dead? They might actually end Ezria once and for all? Someone is pregnant and it's not Peter Hastings' baby? NOEL KAHN DECAPITATING HIMSELF. Pass me my smelling salts.

Biggest No Duh

It *is* a little shocking that Spencer is the lost DiLaurentis, but also sort of not, in that this entire show would not exist if not for the fact that the DiLaurentises and Hastings family tree is more tangled than the pile of feather earrings at the bottom of Aria's jewelry box. Let's review:

Hanna’s kidnapping PTSD sent her into lone wolf mode, and she set out to get Noel Kahn by herself. Ezra and Aria almost eloped until the cops showed up and announced that Nicole might be alive, so Ezra was dispatched to Colombia in case they found her. Paige came back to town, and she and Emily got friendly again. Haleb had a moment (or two). Spencer found video of Noel torturing the Liars in the dollhouse. And Hanna found Shower Harvey’s phone in Noel’s trash and hit him over the head with a baseball bat.

THIS WEEK

Bagel Summit

The Liars plus Mona, Ali and Caleb have gathered at Spencer’s, having realized Hanna played them and is now missing. Saint Mona can’t track her since Caleb gave her an unpingable phone, so she wants to go to the cops with what they know about Jenna, Noel and Shower Harvey. She heads to Radley to tail Jenna while Spencer calls 9-1-1 to report Hanna as kidnapped.

Moments later, Detective Marco Fury and his forensics crew are a’swarming. Toby’s there, because apparently that big goodbye they had three episodes ago did *not* mean he was leaving town just yet. Paige shows up with a mountain of bagels for the Liars/mostly Emily, which makes Ali nauseated with jealousy. Meanwhile, when confronted with a police officer who actually did a LITERAL OUNCE of detective work to learn about her past in the dollhouse and why she would be freaked about Noel, Spencer is so shocked and pleased, she kisses Fury right in front of everyone.

Burning Up With Jungle Fever

Aria takes a time out from the hubbub to Skype with Ezra, who is still in Colombia. With four hostages saved, the authorities dispatched a final search crew into the jungle to see if they could find anyone else, but it’s mostly just a courtesy, and he plans to be home with her very soon.

So she does what any girl would do when her best friend is a missing person: she makes a romantic homecoming dinner for Ezra, which I’m guessing from the red-and-white tablecloth is Italian themed? She leaves him a voicemail since he’s still on the plane. But hours later, when he still isn’t home from the airport and she’s freaking out to the cops about it, she turns to the news where a report shows Nicole, 100% alive, running from the woods into a waiting Ezra’s arms.

But lo, Hanna ain’t kidnapped, y’all. She’s got an unconscious Noel Kahn tied up in her motel room hideout. She rips the tape off his face, turns on the camera, and tries to force a confession out of him with a v. v. shiny, sharp knife. But when he doesn’t talk, she just cuts into his leg, gathers up his BLOOD and takes it to a lab, where she pays off a guy to see if Noel is Mary Drake’s son.

Back at the motel room, she listens to the news reporting her as a missing person and knows she doesn’t have long if everyone in a 50 mile radius is looking for her. So she does what she should’ve done two episodes ago and calls Mona to come help her. “Call me before you abduct someone next time,” Mona pans. “It makes my life a little easier.” MISSED YOU JANEL. She wastes no time in finding the stolen flash drive on Noel’s person and filling Hanna in on what it contains. The flashdrive is enough to put him behind bars, but Hanna refuses to settle for that. She knows he was the one who kidnapped her, and she wants him to PAY THEM DUES, HONEY. She needs ten more hours to figure the rest out.

So Mona coaches her on how to lie to the cops (and her friends), of course. She’ll just make up a little story about how she wanted to prove Noel was guilty, so she went looking for the girl he pushed down the stairs at that frat party like five seasons ago. But she wasn’t able to track her down, and here she is. When Mona feels confident that Hanna’s lie is believable, Hanna goes to Spencer’s to deliver it to the Liars and Detective Fury. And she does, flawlessly, actually.

But back in her motel room, Noel Kahn finally wakes up. And Lord is he pissed.

::PAUSE FOR PASSING SHIPS::

Haleb

Hanna goes back to Lucas’ with Caleb hot on her heels. He doesn’t believe a word of her fake story, and he refuses to leave her alone again. He recites a poem to her about how she lets the dishes in the sink mold, and eats French fries in bed cold. And also she’s annoying and he can’t live another day without her. So okay, I guess.

Emison

Emily is crashing at Ali’s to give Haleb some alone time when Ali walks in, clearly distressed. “I’m pregnant,” she mutters. Uh yeah, guys, Ali’s pregnant with her former torturer/kidnapper/husband’s baby. This is bad. Like, way bad.

Sparco

Detective Marco Fury shows up to take the night shift at Spencer’s (literally everything about this guy sounds like a porno) and he brought her spaghetti!

Cut back to Hanna and Caleb straight doin’ it in front of a roaring fire, which confused my husband, prompting him to say, “Things took a real turn, there. That guy must really like spaghetti.”

Emison, Again, Ugh

Ali and Emily are slumber partying in front of the television when Alison tries to kiss Emily, and I am only saying this in this safe space and not on Twitter (because omg RIP my mentions if I did), but y’all EMISON IS THE WORST. Alison has never put the moves on Emily when things were normal and fine. Only in dire circumstances or when Paige is back. Emily pulls away because Alison’s obviously off her rocker at the moment, but Ali swears that’s not the case and they kiss again. But seriously - even if this weren’t incredibly unhealthy, these two have, like, zero chemistry. And it’s freaking Emily! She has chemistry with all people and inanimate objects. And yet here we are. //rant over

Spoby

Spencer goes to say ANOTHER final goodbye to Toby. She gives him a book of poems and tells him he deserves love (okay?) and asks if she can kiss him one last time before he leaves. Well, she doesn’t actually wait for a response and just kisses him. And everything’s all glowy and dramatic like a dream sequence. But apparently it’s real. It’s just *cough* foreshadowingly meaningful *cough*.

Paily

Emily wakes up cuddled with Alison on the couch, and hears Paige outside. It’s the deadline for their swim coach job and Paige didn’t want her to miss it, so she’s delivering paperwork. She invites Emily to breakfast, but Em’s too afraid to leave Ali in her time of need. She can’t really tell Paige that Ali’s pregnant by her psychotic ex-fake-husband, though, so Paige thinks Emily is choosing Alison over her. “You’re still controlled by her,” she says as she bikes away angrily.

::AND UNPAUSE::

Hanna awakes from her post-coital slumber when her phone rings - the blood isn’t a match with the DNA she provided. Noel isn’t Mary Drake’s Mystery Baby. And thus (Liar Logic™) not A.D. She meets the Liars at Spencer’s and comes clean: she thought she could prove it, but now she can’t, and Noel’s tied up in her hotel room.

The girls have to sneak past the police to get to Noel, so they Ferris Bueller the cops by recording themselves talking so the cops will still think they’re inside. Of course. But when they get to the motel, Noel is long gone, and he took the video camera with him. They get a group text then: Meet him at 1465 Elm Street. He’ll swap the flashdrive for Hanna’s camera.

Meanwhile, Mona and Caleb are staked out at the Radley tailing Jenna. She comes in with a hood on, orders two drinks at the bar and delivers them to their table. She takes the hood off and it’s FREAKING SYDNEY DRISCOLL WHYYYYYYYY. “Compliments of Jenna Marshall. Cheers.”

Oops, It Was an Ax-ident

And so the Liars head on over to Elm Street, which is apparently a hilariously over-the-top haunted house fundraiser put on by the local church youth group. It’s got cobwebs and askew portraits and CGI rats. According to a haphazard plaque on the wall, it’s the Joseph Lloyd King School for the Blind. Where, according to the Liars, Jenna must’ve come after she lost her eyesight. “I didn’t lose my sight. You took it from me,” Jenna says over an intercom.

She tells them to leave the flashdrive on the table, and the girls hear Hanna’s video playing upstairs. They follow the sound to a hospital nursery type room where all the beds are full of dolls because of course. Hanna grabs the tape, but on their way out, they are distracted by a room full of murdery curiosities. “I feel like I just walked into Tim Burton’s garage sale,” Aria pans. When they finally get downstairs, Emily’s lost her phone, so she and Hanna go back up and are stopped by Noel, who plans to straight KILL them for knowing too much.

They run and try to hide in the Tim Burton room but they don’t try very hard. Noel picks up an ax and comes for them, but they knock some stuff on top of him and run out into the hall. When Noel comes out, they sneak up behind him, he drops the ax, Emily punches him in the face, and he falls on his OWN DAMN AX and DECAPITATES HIMSELF WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Noel’s disembodied head rolls down the stairs where the other Liars are in a stand-off with Jenna. She has a gun, and she’s knocked out the power so everyone is on her level, Wait Until Dark style. They keep standing still when she walks by them, like she’s some sort of sexy T-rex, then rush up the stairs to find Noel’s headless body. But Jenna comes up and points the gun right at them, and when they try to run SHE SHOOTS SPENCER IN THE GD HEART. And Spencer is bleeding and crawling across the floor and Troian Bellisario seriously deserves ALL THE ACTING AWARDS because I’m losing my damn mind.

She’s crawled into the baby room and Jenna has followed. “I smell your blood,” Jenna says like omg WUT. But someone knocks her out - it’s Mary Drake! She takes the gun and goes to Spencer. When those other assholes FINALLY get upstairs and find Spencer, Mary is holding a hand over her heart. “Please don’t leave me, Spencer,” Mary coos, “I’m your mother.” Spencer stares up at her before passing out.

An ambulance pulls up, but WHAT, it’s not for Spencer - it’s for Toby and Yvonne! Toby wrecked the truck on their way out of town and they both look probably dead. WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?

RIP Toblerone! Shoulda left town when you said you would three episodes ago!

While the Liars were all distracted by Spencer, A.D. snuck in and dragged Jenna out of the room. Now, she lies there as someone throws an old man latex mask on the floor, and gasps, “You're A.D.?!" (Okay, I wrote this in my notes, but now that I think about it, Jenna is blind and wouldn't be able to see who took off the mask. So either I wrote this note incorrectly or Jenna isn't blind. HALP.)

Somewhere else, a hooded person starts a car. And somewhere else, a gloved villain has little Liar game pieces, and puts Spencer’s in a coffin.

Are these all A.D. at different times in the evening? Is A.D. masked, hooded and gloved? Or do we have three different villains involved here? Do we have another A-TEAM? Did the hooded person in the car cause Toby’s wreck? I AM SO CONFUSED. Help me by explaining some of this in the comments, and I'll see you creeps in April for the final ten episodes of this beautiful nightmare.

About the Author: Rosemary lives in Little Rock, AR with her cute husband and even cuter dog. At 16, she plucked a copy of Sloppy Firsts off the "New Releases" shelf and hasn't stopped reading YA since. (She's still got a soft spot for the swoony, contemporary stuff.) A former magazine editor, she is now a freelance writer, graphic designer, art director and photo stylist. The rest of her time is spent drinking cocktails, renovating her house and laughing at her husband's ridiculous Pretty Little Liars theories.